Month: February 2026

Week 9  2 Kings 18

Nehushtan was a bronze snake. Originally he’d been cast by Moses back in the wilderness during one of the times that Israel had been complaining about their terrible life. The result was that the Lord sent venomous snakes among them. Deadly snakes. When people started dying they reversed course and pleaded with Moses to come-to-the-rescue. So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole…When anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. It was another wilderness miracle: look at Nehushtan and survive.
Anyway after the snake episode Nehushtan disappeared for a long time. Where he landed is anybody’s guess. Maybe archived as a historical relic. Maybe locked away in a storage room. Whatever happened Nehushtan disappeared from the record for six or seven centuries. But he hadn’t been melted down.
And at some point Nehushtan reappeared. Polished-up & refurbished & repurposed as a kind of quasi-idol. He showed up during king Hezekiah’s reign. Unfortunately for Nehushtan it turned out to be his swan-song because Hezekiah was a reforming king and one of the first things he did was to break into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)
So credit Hezekiah for his efforts. But the Nehushtan revival was one more example of Israel’s voracious appetite for alternate gods. And their creativity in finding them.

Note: quotes from Numbers 21:6 9 & 2 Kings 18:4 (NIV)

Week 6  1 Samuel 28

Chapter 28 tells the story of Saul’s last night on earth. Of course Saul didn’t know he was that close to his point-of-no-return. But he knew that tomorrow he’d be facing-off against the Philistines in battle. And he was desperate to have some kind of premonitory tip-off about how things would pan-out. So on that last night he consulted a witch.
Under normal circumstances he likely wouldn’t have tried that but Saul had burned all his legitimate information-providing bridges. When he had tried consulting him the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. All that Saul had left were the dark-arts.
I checked a couple of cross-references in the margin of my bible:
Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists
I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists (the Lord speaking)
Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.
In spite of warnings like this Saul asked the medium at Endor to call up Samuel from the place of the dead. Which – eerily & frighteningly & amazingly– she was able to do. So her seance was a real success. But it spelled doom for Saul.

Note: quotes from 1 Samuel 28:6 Leviticus 19:31 & 20:6 Deuteronomy 18:10-11 (NIV)